22 Famous Star Trek Quotes that Will Live Forever

If you haven’t watched Star Trek, you’ve at least heard about it. The sci-fi television series created by Gene Roddenberry has earned millions of fans over the years.

Roddenberry was allegedly inspired by Gulliver’s Travels and a TV series called Wagon Train to create Star Trek. Each episode of the series is built as an incredible adventure, but also as a morality tale, considering that the episodes depict cultural realities and conflicts like war and peace, sexism, human rights, religion, economics, loyalty, racism and technology.

Due to this approach, Star Trek is not only about space adventure and exploration. The franchise is also recognized for being one of the first TV series with a multiracial cast and applauded for its attitude toward civil rights.

A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.

— Dr. Boyce

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.

— Spock

You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. This is not logical, but it is often true.

— Spock

Live now; make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.

— Jean-Luc Picard

Sometimes a feeling is all we humans have to go on.

— Captain Kirk

With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

— Jean-Luc Picard

The prejudices people feel about each other disappear when they get to know each other. — Captain Kirk

If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are.

— Jean-Luc Picard

Insufficient facts always invite danger.

— Spock

Perhaps man wasn’t meant for paradise. Maybe he was meant to claw, to scratch all the way.

— Captain Kirk

In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see.

— Spock

Compassion: that’s the one thing no machine ever had. Maybe it’s the one thing that keeps men ahead of them.

— Dr. McCoy

Change is the essential process of all existence.

— Spock

Without followers, evil cannot spread.

— Spock

Our species can only survive if we have obstacles to overcome. You remove those obstacles. Without them to strengthen us, we will weaken and die.

— Captain Kirk

Curious, how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.

— Spock

One man cannot summon the future. But one man can change the present!

— Spock

To all mankind — may we never find space so vast, planets so cold, heart and mind so empty that we cannot fill them with love and warmth.

— Garth

You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, and irrational fear of the unknown. There is no such thing as the unknown. Only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.

— Captain Kirk

A species that enslaves other beings is hardly superior — mentally or otherwise.

— Captain Kirk

Now, I don’t pretend to tell you how to find happiness and love, when every day is a struggle to survive. But I do insist that you do survive, because the days and the years ahead are worth living for!

Flavia Medrut is a freelance writer, researcher and part-time psychologist. She believes music, long walks and a good sense of humor are imperative in keeping one’s sanity. Kindness and kittens make her heart melt.

Goalcast is an inspiring community for achievers dedicated to helping you improve all aspects of your life. We provide you with practical advice, resources and the motivation to help you realize your full potential.